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NEWS ARTICLE: 08-01-18

GO Bond Update from Village Manager Rick Tafoya

Message from the Manager: GO Bond Update

On Friday, July 27, Village staff and HDR Engineering opened the bid for the Core Infrastructure Project. Only one bid was submitted for the project and came in at quadruple the amount available. The only reasonable pathway forward is to re-evaluate the scope of the project refocusing the bid request and then begin a new request for proposal. Although the bid opening was disheartening and clearly delays the timeline for getting work started; we remain hopeful that by refocusing the scope of the bid request that we can obtain bids that are realistic and actionable. Because of this outcome, we are all left asking a few questions:

Why was there only one bid?

Lack of available contractors – most local/regional contractors are full to capacity with their current work load.

The size of project is too large – Requesting bids for the total scope of work that needs to be completed is too much for the amount of available funds. So although the Village needs to have a total scope of work in order to make a plan, requesting that size of project for the bid ended up ruling out many of the smaller scale contractors. We are hopeful that downsizing the project request will make it available to more contractors.

Why was it so high?

Lack of available contractors – Proximity of available Asphalt contractors seems to be playing a significant role in the high expense. Since more locally available companies are currently at capacity with work, it causes the area to be extended causing cost to increase with distance.

What is next?

Re-scale the project size and re-bid – The next step will be to size the project to the budget, creating a new bid request.

How does this impact the timeline?

It seems reasonable to project work beginning in spring of 2019.

One reason is time will be needed in order to re-scope and rebid the project.

An additional reason is to save costs. It seems advantageous to begin the project work in the spring in order to avoid mobilizing/de-mobilizing costs.

This could also allow time for more contractors to become available.

As much as we all love living in the mountains, the reality is that it creates a number of significant issues when it comes to providing infrastructure and roads. The terrain itself is part of the issue, the distance from resources is another issue, and the small tax base is yet another factor. These three factors create an unusual puzzle that requires atypical approaches for solving problems that when compared to other places seem easy to remedy (flat land, large population centers, tax base in proportion to service area). The Village staff appreciates your understanding and support in providing for the needs of our community. We remain committed to finding the best quality solutions we can for the funds available. If you have any further questions, you can call me at Village Hall, 377-3232.